Mike Pompeo was originally scheduled to visit Ulaanbaatar on Wednesday. (File)
Washington:
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will cut short his trip to Asia this week, a department spokeswoman said on Saturday, visiting Japan but skipping scheduled stops in South Korea and Mongolia.
The schedule change comes as President Donald Trump is hospitalized near Washington after testing positive for Covid-19.
The senior US diplomat will be in Tokyo from Sunday to Tuesday, spokeswoman Morgan Ortagus said in a statement, where he will meet foreign ministers from Australia, India and Japan.
“Secretary Pompeo plans to visit Asia again in October and will work to reschedule visits on this trip, which is only a few weeks away,” she said, without referring to Trump’s illness.
However, Pompeo brought up the topic on Friday after reporters asked if Trump’s health would change his schedule.
“We are still planning to do the trips, but we will be looking at them,” he replied. “We’ll see which – see which part or parts of these trips make sense and which maybe don’t, and we’ll continue to look at it hour by hour.”
Pompeo was originally scheduled to travel to Ulaanbaatar on Wednesday and stop in Seoul from Wednesday to Thursday to meet with senior officials.
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
